Building legal relationships of responsibility to and with nibi (water)

uh start with the start with the introduction um so as you see from the notification on your screen just wanted to give you a heads up that this um Talk is being recorded um and yeah wel so welcome to the last drop water researchers uh speaker series um if you have an interest in water sustainability issues the speaker series is for you um the last drop speaker series is brought to you by the University of Manitoba sustainable development goal six working group um so in 2018 the University of Manitoba was named the United Nations academic

impact Hub or the unai hub for sustainable development goal six on clean water and sanitation we're the only academic institution who holds this unai designation in North America um so this sdg working group at the um brings together established and emerging leaders um who have a shared interest in freshwater sustainability and who work collaborative ly with local National and Global Partners to address issues related to water members include researchers from the Clayton H Rell faculty of environment Earth and resources The Faculty of agricultural and food Sciences faculty of arts and the faculty of science as

well as collaborators at the center for the advancement of teaching and learning and the office of sustainability as well as the center for human rights research the sustainable development uh group's expertise spends multiple disciplines um including leading researchers from across the humanities social sciences and stem Fields um my name is Nicole Wilson I'm an assistant professor and Canada Research chair in Arctic environmental change and governance at the center for Earth observation science um in the CHR faculty of environment Earth and resources and I co-chair um this group with Claire Herbert um we have about 75

people registered today today so I'm really happy that so many people are joining us and I want to especially note that um we know that there are two student groups um joining us who have organized in-person screenings so um there there are even more attending that way including the anticolonial and environmental justice group at the University of Michigan and uh one here also um in the CHR uh faculty of environment at University of Manitoba um so the in virtual format we're all coming from different locations um many locations given the number of people registered I'm

sure um so I want to acknowledge that I'm located in Winnipeg Manitoba on the original lands of the anishnabe cre OG cre Dakota and Deni peoples and on the homeland of the Red River matey Nation um in the theme of today's panel I also want to acknowledge that my drinking water um here in Winnipeg comes from a SCH Lake through the Winnipeg Aqueduct uh which was constructed in 1919 at the expense of Shaw Lake 41st nation's water security um I invite everybody um to uh kind of reflect on where they're located today um and and

where their drinking water comes from um and feel free to put it uh in the chat um today we have our second talk in the series um by Professor macraft uh before we begin I'll just mention a couple Logistics um we've enabled Clos captioning function so please feel free to turn that on as needed we'll be recording the event as I as I mentioned and um a video will be hosted on our um sustainability YouTube channel after the talk so please mute yourself during the presentation um Pauline tenant from the center for human rights uh

research um has been so helpful in organizing all of this and she'll be uh putting some links in the chat um to that YouTube channel um our presentation will be about 30 minutes um there will be a Q&A period at the end so feel free to put questions in the Q&A box um finally I'd like to say um that for members of our audience um who'd like to learn more or join the SG working group um you can visit our website um again Pauline will kindly put the link in the chat um and you can

find information there about our upcoming talks as well as recordings um links to recordings of previous talks both in this um Year's series as well as last year um so now um let's begin um we have ma craft Professor M craft presenting on building legal relationships of responsibility to and with nibbe or water so M craft um is an award-winning teacher and researcher U recognized internationally as a leader in the area of indigenous laws treaties and water she holds a University Research chair uh in nibbe Manawa Aki and nwin um indigenous governance in relationship with

land and water um she as an associate professor at the uh The Faculty of common law at the University of Ottawa and an indigenous um anishnabe matei legal um lawyer from treaty 1 territory in Manitoba she is the former director of the national inquiry into missing murdered uh indigenous women and girls and the founding director of research at the national Center For Truth and Reconciliation um she practiced at the public interest Law Center for over a decade and in 2016 she was voted one of the top 25 most influential lawyers in Canada uh in 2021

she was awarded the prestigious Canadian bar association uh presidents award and was named the early career researcher of the year um at the University of Ottawa um Professor craft prioritizes IND indigenous Le um interdisciplinary research including through kind of Visual Arts and film uh co-leads a series of major research grants on decolonizing water governance and works with many indigenous Nations and communities on indigenous relationships with and responsibilities to nibbe um there are many more accomplishments that I could list today um but in the interest of getting to our talk um I'll invite you to take

a look at Ma's website as well as the website for um the sh uh partnership funded um uh project called decolonizing water governance that we'll put a link to their website in the chat as well um so ma uh without further Ado I'll uh give you the floor uh thank you so much for being here with us today thank you so much for the invitation to join you and to uh the center for human rights research for supporting this um as well as the SG working group um I'm joining you from 31 territory as well

but actually on Lake Winnipeg where the water flows in from the Winnipeg River into the lake so that's just here is a reminder to me about those relationships as well and that's where U my drinking water is drawn from the water table here in this territory um as was mentioned I uh have the responsibility for a research chair in nian so indigenous governance and relationship with land and water and that's what wanted to to share today and hoping we can have a a discussion about how we build uh legal relationships that respond to or recognize

our responsibilities for for governing but not governing over water not treating it as something to be governed but thinking about what our sets of responsibilities are uh in relationship to water and each and every one of us can take that up in a variety of different forms and already as was mentioned acknowledging um where our uh drinking water comes from and the lands and Waters that we're responsible to and four um uh is is an important that's an important part of how we take up that responsibility I have some slides that I'm going to share

um and uh and hopefully they can supplement part of the discussion I would encourage you to um put your questions in the Q&A function and also um some comments into the chat if you uh would like and definitely in the chat tell us where you're um where you're joining from I understand that some of you are joining from uh very remote uh locations or other countries um we'd love to uh to hear from you uh this is a picture of uh the wanganui river and the a water exchange and I might I'll speak to that

a little bit more later um but thinking about how those relationships that we have within our own territory are significant but how we build relationships across boundaries and one of the things to note about water is that it defies geopolitical boundaries in some cases it refuses to be governed by uh affirmations of jurisdiction and authority over it so uh that's kind of the C of of what I want to chat about today and a lot of that work that um is feeding into this thinking for me is coming from our uh our research group de

colonizing water that uh it's not the water itself that's being decolonized it's more the human interactions and the attempts to govern water that are being uh or that are proposed to be decolonized and the research um group has worked with um indigenous nations in a variety of different contexts in building uh building up their governance and laws relating to uh to water and we'll chat about some of those today um this Grant as a social sciences and Humanities re research Council Grant is coming to a close uh in the next year and uh we're already

thinking about reenvisioning decolonizing water 2.0 and I'm looking at this logo I'm thinking where do we put the 2.0 um because the work is far from done uh one of the elements that I would note uh as significant is in rebuilding indigenous governance uh relating to water and thinking about roles and responsibilities that are rooted in indigenous laws and legal orders um there's an obligation to also think about its application and how in many cases you can have an activity of rebuilding or acknowledging indigenous law but what is its connection to how does it sit

alongside complement or interact in any way or remain separate in um the exercise of other forms of law including state law so the interaction of different legal systems is an important consideration and collaboration around water governance um and that kind of ties to um a lot of the different work that I've done on treaties and hydroelectric development reconciliation those are all uh deeply connected in how we understand these water Scapes and you know I could put up a a map of Manitoba right now to show where I'm situated but I actually wanted to show this

is um situatedness so these are different kinds of boundaries and what treaties did was actually use water as forms of delineating space and then at some point in time we had kind of these geopolitical boundaries of straight lines up and down North North South defining the breaks between provinces and uh this is water uh this is the southern Basin of Lake Winnipeg and you see the Winnipeg river flowing going in on the right hand side of the screen and from the left bottom corner uh is the red river flowing into uh the the South Basin

of Lake Winnipeg this water um you know from the the east Southeast is coming from the United States the Rainy namkin right uh you know north of the boundary of where the Mississippi Watershed starts uh the water's also coming up again from the United States through the the Red River and then you know we don't see it in this image but we have all of the water flowing from the West into the Lake Winnipeg Watershed and into the lake um at Grand Rapids and and coming from as far as the um the Rocky Mountains and

from the glaciers in that region so this a pretty significant expansive space that you can see here U and involving all kinds of jurisdictions so we see that there's no real clean nice fit of the geopolitical boundaries of states and provinces and countries that fits uh with how water is actually moving within that uh water scape and the question then becomes you know what which law what what law are we applying when we have um these confluences of of waters Within These geopolitical boundaries and we also have different forms of waters so often we think

about water bodies as what is right for governance but different forms of water swamp water fresh water rain water you know we need to think about these different forms snow um the the different forms that water takes and also the fact that what is within one form and in one jurisdictional area might actually move and morph and change to become something different um so engaging all of these thoughts about different authorities um as as kind of tenuous when you engage with water governance and water jurisdiction and to a certain extent this means that we need

to think about domestic law international law and Indigenous laws and legal orders as we contemplate how we might better govern water for um a a positive water future um so this is you know I don't want to get into great details here but in terms of uh Federal jurisdiction provincial jurisdiction often we see some overlap potentially disagreement um and in indigenous governance we have uh a significant amount of indigenous law and legal order but also constitutional obligations to indigenous peoples which now has been recognized as part of the water governance landscape in Canada and we're

really at a watershed moment and I would say um this is incredibly important because here we have images is of Standing Rock a big water conflict and we see systems of law that are buding up against each other water Defenders and protectors on the right state enforcement of state law on the left hand side and we see even here in this image you know an imbalance of of power but the ultimate jurisdictional legal Authority that is valid on both sides just not corresponding uh to one another one another of these sets of of obligations of

legal obligations so these conflicts are likely to arise a lot more with insecure water futures um and so we need to think about how how we might reconcile these or um how we might develop systems of collaboration uh that give effect to both systems of law or that resist uh the imposition of other systems and I said we're at a watershed watershed moment in Canada because um Canada has U newly announced and currently being established Water Agency and uh uh proposed freshwater action plan and in that they've acknowledged um the importance of regionally responsive initiatives

um that in watersheds that are of national significance and also to think about um and include indigenous governance as essential to part of that governance so that's a big development and I would say water policy landscape in Canada and in developing both of these there's been a significant amount of attempts to engage indigenous nations in redefining Canada's water future part of the reason for that I think is uh and and we can all acknowledge that we're in a different moment in time uh the TRC told us that reconciliation is essential and that that means establishing

and maintaining respectful relationships and that to actually give effect to reconciliation we'd have to have real societal change so what does real societal change look like in the waterscape it looks like an agency that coordinates but that coordinates with indigenous voices uh at that table and thinking about freshwater action in uh Regional um in in more Regional ways again including indigenous governance and part of that is as the Teri said recognizing that end drip is um the Cornerstone for reconciliation and un drip itself contains uh significant amount of uh engagement with water and lands including

Concepts like free prior and informed consent prior to um any impacts or development in indigenous territories and on uh indigenous resources thinking about indigenous institutions of governance and here I signal you end up article 25 that speaks about the distinctive spiritual relationship that indigenous people have with um lands territories Waters Coastal seas and also I would just signal this last uh sent last part of the sentence here um the right to uphold the those responsibilities of sacred relationships or spiritual relationships for future Generations so that kind of said the stage uh in terms of where

we're at in the Canadian waterscape and uh this aligns with some of the work that I mentioned decolonizing water has been doing and which was originally supported um through um a grant received at the center for human rights research under the direction of Karen Busby the previous um the founding director and we looked at as part of clean drinking water uh we actually kind of hied off a little piece that I worked on with some Elders a faculty of Elders that are still very active in working on water issues to flesh out uh a nnab

law relating to uh water itself or nibbe we have been holding a series of gatherings niba Gatherings since 2013 to explore that relationship recommit to the relationship I love this photo because I look at some of these young people that are now adults driving cars and in University um and they're you know they're they've been committed to this work since they were little tiny humans and so that work continues um on the basis of these principles that were acknowledged um by The Faculty of Elders as being the foundation to annab nian or annab water law

and um an important thing to signal is that that ownership of water is um it isn't part of that uh that legal order the innab legal order um so not owning water recognizing that it has a spirit that it is life that it can heal and also looking at some of the jurisdictional pieces so um the the responsibility of women to water acknowledging that water can suffer and that we have corresponding responsibilities and that we also need to acknowledge the duality of water so giving life and taking life and uh inherent to all of that

is the respect for ni and so how the the elders came about these conclusions was drawing from spiritual sources of law that are then affected in laws of nature and then built into customary laws over time um and exercised by Nations for long periods of time and using those different sources of Law and building up these principles in a human and deliberative context we then make decisions based on these sources of Law and principles that deriv from these sources of law so this is a a sense of the legal structure that is um providing these

these guiding principles what's interesting I think about this is to acknowledge that this is not human-made law for the most part the decisions and the results in a given context will have that human and deliberative element but that really these laws are given by the land and water itself and that this framing of it even is an exercise in governance a reflection of an isnab frame but that it is not um that it emanates from the land itself so the law uh is given from the land and the water and the language to to uh

acknowledge also late Darcy link later who us used to make that very important link on a regular basis and they give rise to different uh legal traditions and on the left you'll see the principle or the founding um pillars of in aunan or innab law being relationships and a collective sense of well-being whereas in this Western framework we're looking at law primarily in uh individual sets of Rights and the protection of private property and I'll encourage you to think back to that image that I showed you of Standing Rock and thinking about how those legal

systems uphold those different sets of rights that you can see very visibly uh in that visual representation of conflict of con conflicting laws and in thinking about not just individual relationships or adversarial relationships thinking about this interconnected web of responsibilities uh between all beings in creation and how there's an interdependency and a woven Ness of uh these different legal principles that are given effect through some of our actions um that are responding to land and water itself and these are some of the images uh from the ni Gathering and an activity that helps us understand

that relationship between uh Earth uh all all of the diff different elements Earth Wind air um and uh and water we have the fire that's present in that okay so I want to connect this um briefly to uh a different framework of thinking so this is not indigenous laws and legal orders but rather kind of a western policy concept of Rights of Nature and thinking about how that's given effect in different contexts um and also the legal personhood of water as kind of a contemporary manifestation of the thinking of Rights of nature so rights of

nature is more like a 1970s movement of thought where the natural environment as a whole for the most part or in specific areas would be granted rights and would have spokespersons and have legal standing in court when it comes to water and the more recent movement in um 2017 really is the first direct affirmation of this concept to a water body we're thinking about specific water bodies and the granting of one legal instrument or the the use of one legal instrument of legal personhood to Grant rights to a river to create that U that standing

in um Western legal context so uh you know water in and of itself or a water body like a river could not Sue unless it had some kind of granted right to be able to engage in uh litigation or to have legal personhood and have standing in uh a court context or in another legal context like a contract for example basically the idea was to be able to defend the rights of the river through um humans but on the basis of the personhood of the water and so we ask these questions what does being a

personin law mean well can that means that like a corporation or a municipality you would have a right to sue and also be sued um and and the mechanisms by which you would do that is either recognition in a piece of legislation or agreement or Court would recognize so there's different approaches to how you would do that um but some questions still arise as to the benefits and downfalls of that how you actually frame out which bodies of water receive that personhood protection and thinking about whether or not personhood is actually an appropriate mechanism to

recognize what indigenous people people around the world have been saying which is water has a spirit um and it has its own agency so is legal personhood enough to give effect to that and uh currently we're doing some work to with different indigenous Nations to ask that question within their different Community uh legal and governance contexts and as I said different ways of of trying to achieve legal personhood it's not a one-size fits all and these are just some of the approaches that have Arisen around around the world since 2017 um these are some of

the examples so not the mechanisms themselves but the places um and out of this we can draw all of those different legal approaches so when someone says legal personhood um my first question is well how how is it given effect and then what's the ultimate result what's the the governing Authority that attaches to that how is it how is that personhood actually given effect is it a council is it um you know a broad Declaration of multi parties where um you know we're going to have to sort out some of those important standing questions or

authority questions or sets of responsibilities like for example in the context of India the government was responsible um for in the original Court ruling but wasn't able or decided not to take that up amongst the different um departments that were affected um and the question that I posed about indigenous legal mechanisms are they the same as legal personhood it say they're a little bit different and they recognize the spiritedness and agency of water in different ways uh than uh kind of a state decision would although some of them overlap and I'll point to the wanganui

river as an important example of that where you have uh the legis the Ala New Zealand legislation and you have uh that b basis of Mai law that fits into the Preamble of it and it's given effect through uh trust uh so having appointed trustees um but we do have other examples of indigenous Nations affirming for example on the clouth river um bylaw and resolutions um and also things that extend beyond water so in here here we have white Earth's rights of monoman Declaration of 2016 which recognizes this inherent right to exist flourish regenerate evolve

um to you know inherent rights to Restoration recovery and preservation which also includes the right to healthy climate and freshwater habitat so this is not a legal personhood of water this is giving effect to a primary relative of the nation and recognizing the the rights of manomen or wild rice so we do water protection here through a different mechanism and in a space where the white Earth um Nation actually has this jurisdictional Authority relating to its wild race and so you know I think these are really interesting examples of how different nations have taken up

those sets of responsibilities and we have an example in Canada Through The Magpie River um where legal personhood was granted um or um enacted through a bylaw but also a regional municipality has a sister resolution so the two track you know side by side they're one and and the same but they're not compressed they sit as two different legal authorities in jurisdiction that are doing uh the same thing in terms of recognizing the uh legal rights of the river and granting it nine rights or or recognizing nine rights to it uh including rights to flow

and maintain biodiversity uh and the right to take legal action so here there's that idea again of personhood as a right to act as a legal actor and here they have a representation through Guardians that are appointed uh in these different bodies to um and that you know to act on behalf of the river that have the duty um to ENT ensure the protection of those nine granted rights um we also have another example in British Columbia where the sturgeon uh is recognized as a rights holder so a being that has uh rights and in

treaty 3 through the work of the grand Council and uh the women's um Council uh recognition of the rights of Ni and uh a declaration that explains in a non-prescriptive way what those sets of responsibilities are and that's based on a nishnabe law also the direction that was given by elders and that went through an entire Community process of regional Gatherings uh and then a national forum and then uh National Assembly uh full ratification by the nation itself so this is an important exercise of law it doesn't look like legislation but it's a declaration that

sets out those principles and parameters around water governance within the treaty 3 area from the innab perspective and that invites everyone into that relationship of uh responsibility we also have some thinking uh and and action that's been happening around uh personhood of Lake Winnipeg or the protection of the lake and part of that initiative uh meant doing water exchanges with different um regions where water bodies had legal personhood so uh taking you know taking some of this water in in ceremony according to the protocols of um you know in Grand Rapids with uh cre women

jurisdiction holders taking some of this water to the wui to the Ganges and yamuna in um India and to the atat in Colombia and exchanging the water so that we can build on that concept of legal personhood and spiritedness and agency ask the lake what would you like what can we do to try and protect um protect you uh and that's one of the questions that I think comes with legal personhood is it something that's desirable to these water bodies and thinking about the ceremonial and spiritual uh aspects of that through this kind of exchange

water exchange work and also thinking about water a water treaty which is currently in development and meant to engage the whole of the Watershed so thinking about uh all of the the different regions from which this water comes and meets in in the Lake Winnipeg in Lake Winnipeg um building a treaty around those relationships of responsibility to the water that comes together in the lake and that's something that's under development uh currently with Partners from across uh the The Watershed so like I said at the outset um I think we have an opportunity right now

with the new Canada Water Agency with a revised freshwater uh policy and thinking about a new uh legislation a new Canada Water Act or a revised one to engage with uh the United Nations Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples including Concepts like free prayer and informed consent and also considering very seriously indigenous laws and legal orders and that spiritual relationship that is meant to be preserved for future generations and to build that into any efforts of water governance uh in Canada and recognition of indigenous laws in any of those processes of governance I'll take

a step step back and kind of contextualize some of my thinking around that is um in large part indigenous Nations have been involved in water governance in kind of the management piece so at the the fringes not the high level decision-making but more in terms of you know how do we manage this particular problem rather than thinking holistically about watersheds and good governance within the whole of the territory and the different and multiple interactions like that example of you know asserting jurisdiction over manomen but acknowledging that water is an extremely significant part of that so

you know involvement of indigenous laws and legal orders at those high level governance tables not only in terms of process and involvement um but running that process from the perspective IND of indigenous um procedural principles and also substantive principles of decision making which ultimately we can understand draw in indigenous science and Indigenous knowledge into both the process and the substance of how decisions are made and ultimately what decisions are made so I think those are extremely significant parts of how we can think about adjust uh and positive water future in Canada so I'll leave it

at that I know I'm a fast talker so I'm I was trying to make sure that we'd have a lot of time for questions and discussion uh as part of this webinar today so make rich thank you so much em um so we'll will uh ask you to put your questions in the Q&A I saw I see a lot of Applause coming in there um let's see I have a hand up can you put your question in the chat I guess while we're waiting for that um I have a question so with the wanganui river

um so the kind of process there is a a kind of further along than a lot of kind of other places and so we get to see this process of implementation um so this big there's a big idea of kind of acknowledging the personhood of water and kind of the um important implications of that but then it gets like how do you get down to the nitty gritty of actually like implementing that um and I'm wondering if you've looked at some of the kind of um learnings out of that context um including both the challenges

and and positives um that we could learn from here that's a really good question and I think in large part the jury is out in terms of what the actual implementation of a lot of this looks like it's still under development in in a lot of these different contexts um having done a recent exchange with the folks from the Columbia context the atat river and the Guardians uh that were set up you know they're still very much working on figuring this out even though they have a mandate from the constitutional Court to exist and do

this work um in terms of the the wongu I think um there's the part of the challenge is is how you govern with different sets of principles and different interests over a singular water body and how do you do that in ethical ways um often the the you know the big questions that are going to come up are resources and then how to resolve conflict that arises and there aren't easy answers to those questions I think part of it too that that needs to be acknowledged and it has been in in some of the literatur

is that this um resolution is actually born out of conflict and and it's a settlement of a claim a treaty claim to the Wang um the white Tangi tribunal so you know the how things rest side by side um together in interwoven ways um also evolves over time so um you know I think that there's a lot to consider about the success of identifying a water body with parameters and I think that's one of the things that this that does well is that it it it's not um kind of outside of the scope of something

that's identifiable it's one River with a beginning and end and an identify identified uh Nation interest uh you know Mali interest in the wongi tribe and um and it has supporting legislation so the that mandate is significantly entrenched um both in the settlement and in the uh in the the legislation so but I think in large part um you know it it um is is challenging to think about uh you know whether or not implementation is a success or not um recently did a report with David Suzuki foundation and uh my colleague Rachel Plotkin and

we um kind of mapped out the different collaborative processes and some of the benefits and downfalls of of each and um you know there is no perfect model that we were able to find um but I think that you know in trying and continuing to develop them there's some potential for for Real uh meaningful change great thank you um so uh Dr step mlin who believe is coming from treaty 8 territory today put a question in the in the chat so I just wanted to address that one first before we go to the one in

the Q&A um so um he States as a lawyer and an indigenous person uh what do you see as the implied implications of legal personhood in terms of changing the way dominant Society treats water both in Canada and Beyond I think it comes down to sets of values so what informs our decision making both legal and political is the sets of values that we approach and that's why I encouraged us to think at the end about both a process you know doing things in ways that have indigenous process woven into them which will help us

get to different sets of values and then make principal decision- making based on those sets of values and when you think back to the slide that I showed that had you know the foundational um principles of in aonan versus Western legal princip principles and that difference right individual sorry individuals here individual and uh relational and the idea of protection of private property versus a collective sense of well-being I mean it doesn't take uh any degree to figure out that there are major differences between those sets of those core sets of values that underly the whole

of each of those legal systems right so you know how can it be what what are the implications I think we might come to different outcomes if we're using um indigenous sets of of values in our our decision making um one example of that is found in the recent publication that we have uh Jill Dr Jill blle from usask and myself we co-edited a volume uh called in our backyard and it was exploring the Kias development in Northern Manitoba and it was building on a process before the clean environment commission that had found that there

were no significant residual adverse effects to the building of the kiosk hydroelectric Dam and you know significant residual are very big qualifiers on adverse effects adverse I think is also a qualifier so you're building up these you know these different um qualifiers on impact and from the I I think most of the cre perspectives that were presented in the um in the hearing you could see that mitigation measures were not enough to actually make determinations of no significant residual adverse effects from the cre perspective they did find that there were significant impacts um mitigation didn't

actually change that mitigation was kind of a measure that sat separately and apart from the determination of impact and so I think that's part of this you know the different worldviews but I think it's more than that it's based on different systems of decision- making and then arriving at a conclusion whereas in this kind of provincial state law you can chip away at the impact with mitigation in the cre legal system that wasn't the same it there was no chipping away they kind of stood as two separate determinations and then a decision to move forward

um and it's so you see an incap incompatibility there and I think that if there was more regard to um you know decision- making from those indigenous perspectives there could be potentially more honest outcomes in saying yes there's impact yes there's mitigation and we decide to move forward thank you so much um oh we've got questions rolling in in the Q&A now so we have a question from Ruth Kerr uh M which do you feel um it is important for those involved in the Canada Water Agency to understand indigenous ways specifically procedural principles absolutely and

I think that in some cases the Canada Water Agency might want to defer to those principles um in its uh in its process in certain regions where indigenous Nations have taken up that Authority and jurisdiction and are ready to be part of that govern exercise for example treaty 3 with the nib declaration right it's it's ready to go uh in terms of playing a significant role of governance within the that watershed thanks um so I could be wrong but this uh it was posted by an anonymous attendee but I believe it's Mona Maxwell um accidentally

posting as Anonymous um so she said I arrived a bit late so my apologies if my question is redundant but uh my question is can you comment advise on the specific challenges or the biggest opportunities for Lake Winnipeg Watershed in the context of expertise is it unique in any way in terms of your area of expertise um you have certainly given a lot of broad ideas here um that likely apply for sure I guess it's like is there anything unique about the Lake Winnipeg Watershed um Beyond some of the examples that you gave I think

the unique defining factor of Lake Winnipeg Watershed is the multiple jurisdictions at play um so the international dimension um and the multi-provincial jurisdictional dimensions also the fact that the Lake Winnipeg Watershed involves um ice fields and um water in the Rocky Mountains that's coming that's snow and ice that makes its way and the fact that it ultimately runs into um you know the Hudson's Bay through the Nelson river system so there's a lot of unique defining features I think the second piece this will be of no surprise to anyone who knows me is the fact

that it's a reservoir um for hydroelectric development so it's a holding um it is a holding body for water that ultimately um who that's whose flow is regulated to feed into a hydroelectric uh system that also comes through on the winipeg river some hydroelectric dams and uh so that should be acknowledged as well so it's it's a water body but you know what we think of in terms of pollution of fresh water uh in in other spaces is Amplified by the fact that this is uh Power generating water thank you and um that leads in

you know nicely to this next question by Anna um kind of about the different states and forms of water so can it be be um would you can it be be all kinds of water like Lake oceans rivers plus different forms of water like gas liquid and solid as in ice form so maybe it's asking um would you use the term nibby to refer to all of those forms of water oh that's a good question I'm not a fluent language speaker and I wouldn't want to overstep on that front um and I know that in

the discussions of the nibbe Declaration of treaty 3 there was an agreement to use that term to reflect kind of water generally and all forms of water um but there are specific terms in in isnab went to refer to a river sep or um to a lake um and you know those different water Scapes like for example here water flowing into the lake the space is called sagin right where the river flows into the lake um so it is kind of a general term that is used for a lot of different forms of water but

then you think about those different forms uh as geograph or water forms H Hydro hydrology of water there are specific names and different forms like ice and and rain water and things like that will have their own names even uh underground aquifers and Marsh Waters will have different yeah so it's it's an overall um used term that sits imperfectly it's like saying water H2O yeah thank you um so actually in the chat we have a question by Daniel Cano um so um he States uh when indigenous peoples assert rights Canadian courts sometimes state public interest

as a reason to overrule or undermine indigenous interests uh what can be done in these situations that's a good question and I think the response of legal personhood is it's a response to that um that the um that you're trying to position water bodies as having rights in and of themselves um and I think the response you know the more direct legal response to Daniel's question is um the the um the public interest versus indigenous rights in some spheres there's a priority to indigenous rights and invoking constitutional treaty and Aboriginal rights along along with the

United Nations declaration I think show some promise uh in terms of affirmation of those rights but the landscape has not been great in terms of Canadian courts acknowledging indigenous um priorities in relation to water so I think there's a long uh road ahead um another way I think of potentially addressing that is asserting jurisdiction affirming jurisdiction and then being able to demonstrate in courts that indigenous people are taking up that Juris iction themselves and that that then can pose a question of those competing laws and something that would have to be dealt with in the

realm of not just a dependency on the recognition of Rights but addressing the conflict that arises from these uh systems of law that are incompatible that sounded like a lot of legal Theory but in practice I think you know trying a lot of different strategies and hopefully um we we can get to some some positive recognition Okay thank you um so uh we have another question by Dr Steph McLaughlin um so it says the Canadian museum for human rights also located in Winnipeg has substantial has had substantial growing pains when it comes to recognizing and

reflecting the impacts of colonization um on indigenous peoples in Canada and it arguably still does is there any reason to expect the Canada Water Agency will be different why or why not so yeah I guess just a question about Canada Water Agency and um yeah yeah I'm still optimistic and um I know that from the outset in uh thinking about even before the agency was uh after it was announced but before it was established that there was sign ific engagement on uh indigenous peoples having a role in water governance and that there's been um process

of Engagement with Nations throughout the establishment of the agency process and thinking about how um it can be responsive uh if you look at the federal government's messaging it does speak to indigenous peoples directly which um you know other organizations that have been set up kind of didn't mention it explicitly or um hadn't gone through that that same thought process so absolutely no guarantee but it's been part of the conversation since the outset of thinking about the agency and so that gives me some hope that there will be more meaningful engagement with indigenous peoples and

uh indigenous governance in law he thank you um there was like a quick question in the um chat as well about the the water treaty fact sheet I think that you mentioned in your presentation and whether that might uh be available um for the audience to look at as a resource it should be on the decolonizing water website or social media um if it's not I'll I'll ask just make sure that it is there um and it's still in very much in development um uh so I'm making a note myself um water treaty fact sheet

and it provides some basic information there's also a pamphlet that we handed out at the ni Gathering last year uh that explores some of the concepts that I talked about today and the water treaty uh I would link this also to the Buffalo treaty that was developed by the Blackfoot Confederacy and partners uh in uh developing redeveloping their relationship with the Buffalo and the treaty that they built with the Buffalo nation and um their Nations together that has received a significant amount of support from uh other outside stakeholders outside of the nation and that um

we use as part of the model and um Leroy littlebear who was instrumental in the building of that treaty is also working with us on the um the water treating wonderful um so we have time for uh I guess I think one last question and just um Ruth Kuran asking um following up here um if there's time uh what do you think um what do you feel is important for the Canada Water Agency to understand about indigenous procedural principles uh I do want to note at this juncture that there isn't kind of one indigenous approach

so whe the Canada Water Agency is going to have to deal with as multiple different approaches in different regions and with different nations um but I think one of the things that is common to a lot of the uh indigenous procedural approaches that I've been exposed to is the idea of timeliness and thinking about who are the appropriate actors in making decisions um so how much time you spend making a decision um and you know who to involve in that decision- making are two very important procedural elements that may be very different when you're acknowledging

the indigenous procedural approach um that and thinking about you know how that then engages other sets of of um of principles uh into the process in some of my work on treaties and the the making of treaties historically you know the elements of feasting and pipe and so the ceremonial aspects also uh the the jurisdictional pieces of acknowledging jurisdiction and working out um decision- making Authority at the front end um were important kind of procedur Al elements that had connotations for the substance of of you know how how decisions were made and and what decisions

uh ultimately were yeah ceremonial aspects recognition of spiritedness time uh and uh and you know who should be part of those decisions and I think the idea of ongoing consent that's in fpic also has a very important role to play in thinking about process you know the idea of not having um necessarily immediate and final responses to absolutely everything thinking that there is some room for example for adaptive management as part of Canada's freshwater future great thanks so much um yeah a lots A lot's coming up here with the Canada Water Agency and I'm looking

to forward to seeing how um things develop um and hopefully some of these ideas can be can be imp implemented there um so I think with that um I'll say thank you so much for your talk today and for everyone who attended and um asked such engaging questions um we have um we'll be posting the recording of this uh talk to our uh to the uh sustainability YouTube channel as well as to our website soon so for anyone who wants to rewatch I'm sure there'll people who uh would like to kind of revisit some of

the ideas shared um as well as other people um it will uh be there we also have uh already posted our talk from last um last session with aush Kumar to our page so please go there um and check it out as well as register for our future talks um I believe our next talk is on November 20th um with uh zuu kusik um who will speak about the EU Coastal habitat comprehensive research project so please join us then um again thank you so much Ma I'm always uh just such a pleasure to hear you

speak so um with that I'll say goodbye thanks everyone